Boeing Company's constituent business units are organized around three main groups of products and services—commercial airplanes, military aircraft and missiles, and space and communications.
It was only about a decade after the Wright Brothers' first flight that Bill Boeing, who was in the timber business in Seattle, decided to learn how to fly planes. After he ordered a plane of his own, Boeing decided the design left room for to be improved upon. So he did. In 1934, TIME called him "a hard-headed industrialist who turned to flying as a hobby, began making airplanes as a whim and ended up by giving the world a new standard of aircraft performance."
The eponymous company he founded in 1916 has been part of nearly every step of the aviation industry's evolution, from wood-and-canvas contraptions to the jets of the modern age. Below is a collection of 22 vintage photographs of Boeing planes from between the 1930s and 1970s:
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| Colonel Roscoe Turner, the pilot of an American Boeing plane, showing his wife a model of the plane, at the airfield in Mildenhall. 19th October 1934. (Photo by R. Wesley/Fox Photos/Getty Images) |
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| A Pan American Airways flying boat aircraft passing over a clipper ship on the Spanish coast. January 1938. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images) |
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| Two U.S. Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers in flight near Seattle, circa 1944. (Photo by Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) |
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| A US Boeing B-17e Flying Fortress bomber, circa 1946. (Photo by Three Lions/Getty Images) |
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| British Prime Minister Clement Attlee (1883 – 1967) inspects the crew of a US Boeing B-50 Superfortress bomber nicknamed “Nifty 50” at RAF Marham in Norfolk, 4th October 1949. (Photo by Ron Burton/Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) |
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| The Pan-American World Airways clipper “Flying Cloud”, the first of a fleet which will fly between New York and London, 1949. (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Getty Images) |
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| The Boeing B-17-C-type Flying Fortress, known to the RAF as a Fortress I bomber, in flight, circa 1950. (Photo by Three Lions/Getty Images) |
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| Five mountaineers undergo a level of oxygen deprivation equivalent to breathing air at 20,000 feet in a Boeing Strato-Trainer altitude simulator in Seattle, 25th August 1952. The five are planning an ascent of the 17, 000 ft King peak in Alaska. Left to right: Bill Niendorff, Pete Schoening, Boeing flight test engineer Yates Hickey, Tom Morris, Dave Harah, and Vic Rosendahl. (Photo by Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) |
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| Three Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers dropping bombs over North Korea, 1952. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images) |
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| Queen Elizabeth II at the Coronation Review of the RAF at Odiham Hampshire, 15th July 1953. She inspected 1125 officers and other ranks drawn from all commands of the RAF and over 300 aircraft with crew and personnel. Vehicles and equipment representing all branches of the services were also paraded and the visit ended with a fly past of more than 600 aircraft in review order. Visible aircraft include de Havilland Venom jet fighters (front row, right), B-29 Superfortress long range bombers (middle row), called Boeing Washingtons by the RAF, and American-built F-86 Sabre jet fighter (front row, middle). (Photo by Monty Fresco/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images) |
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| US Air Force Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker “City of Renton” on its maiden flight, September 1956. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images) |
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| Interior of a giant Boeing 707 jet airliner which can take up to 165 economy class passengers. 8th September 1958. Owned by Pan-Am she is carrying a service crew for noise test flights over Britain. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images) |
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| The Boeing 707 Jet Stratoliner Number One under construction at Boeing's Transport Division in Renton, Washington, circa 1958. (Photo by Central Press/Getty Images) |
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| Jamaican immigrants arriving at Gatwick Airport, 22nd March 1962. Hundreds of Jamaicans flew on the chartered Boeing flights to arrive in Britain before the Immigration Bill became law. (Photo by Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) |
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| A Boeing 720 crash lands on a runway with a faulty nosewheel, 1962. (Photo by Stroud/Getty Images) |
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| A steward and stewardess serving first-class passengers with drinks and refreshments on board a Boeing 747, 1970. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images) |
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| A Pan-American 747 jumbo jet on the tarmac at Heathrow Airport, where it touched down after carrying 380 people, a new world record for the number of people ever to fly in one aircraft. 12th January 1970. (Photo by Dennis Oulds/Central Press/Getty Images) |
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| BOAC stewardesses peering through the port holes of the mock-up Jumbo Jet 747 at London's Heathrow Airport during training for the introduction of transatlantic Jumbo flights. 30th March 1971. (Photo by Dennis Oulds/Central Press/Getty Images) |
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| John Paul Jones of English rock group Led Zeppelin plays a Thomas electric organ behind the bar on board a private Boeing 720B airliner known as “The Starship”, which is being used by the band on their North American tour, 30th July 1973. (Photo by Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) |
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| A young woman watches a video on board a private Boeing 720B airliner known as “The Starship”, which is being used by English rock group Led Zeppelin on their North American tour, 30th July 1973. (Photo by Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) |
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| The hijacked Boeing 707 of Lebanon's Middle East Airlines, with the safety chutes down, at Lydda Airport, Israel. The plane was hijacked by a whisky-drinking Libyan, armed with two pistols, soon after its take-off from Nicosia, Cyprus, en route to Beirut, and diverted to Israel. Israeli commandos stormed the plane and rescued the 109 passengers and 10 crew. 17th August 1973. (Photo by Daniel Rosenblum/Keystone/Getty Images) |
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| Boeing Chinook V-107 multi-role helicopters take part in Japanese Defence Force manoeuvres at the Fuji Manoeuvre Ground at the foot of Mount Fuji, 1977. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images) |